Tena koutou katoa We’ve been busy!

. A new teacher has been in our class, Lucy Ford, a Graduate Teacher and the children are enjoying learning with her

. a few children visited the Art Gallery to create some very cool ART

. we have been learning about Food – for thought, how to read food labels, everyday and sometimes food and food groups

. planned a CLASS CAFE BRUNCH (class named the cafe ‘Central Art Cafe because we have a lot of art on our walls) – porridge, homemade lemonade, grilled cheese (making station photo is above) and hashbrowns

. ‘weaving wellbeing’ with Abby, learning about our strengths

. ‘mindfulness with Erica’ learning about how to think, different emotions and regulating emotions

. after a term playing a winter sport lots of us went to the NORTH ZONE Winter Tournament at Hagley Park

. group novel study during Reading

. division, percentages and decimals at Maths

. Police Reports for Goldilocks in Story Telling

. learning new spelling patterns and practising our cursive handwriting

. we have also started our new topic ‘Sexuality Education’ focusing on our uniqueness, how the media can influence us as we grow.

Welcome to BOOK WEEK! We are ready to Read and Roll!

Our class novel is ‘The Explorer’ by Katherine Rundall about four children who survive a plane crash over the Amazon jungle, they have to put aside their differences and band together to find shelter and food. There is Fred, who dreams of being an explorer one day, Brazilians Lila and her little brother Max, 5, and the moody Constantia, an orphan who only answers to Con. After Fred finds a map, they build a makeshift raft and set off down the river looking for help – and stumble into the camp of a mysterious hermit.

We actually started reading our novel when Ellie shared that in the news four children were really lost in the AMAZON. We followed the ‘news story’ and wrote newspaper articles about this amazing event.

Look at the photos of our WINDOW DISPLAY for Book Week, we hope to win the class competition. Our mural is of the Amazon Rainforest. We drew and traced real and ‘imaginary’ animals that could and do live in the jungle.

Last week we also wrote information reports about an Amazon animal. Topic sentences and paragraphing was our big focus. We did very well and hope you enjoyed reading them 🙂

This week we will dress up as a favourite book character, use compasses to create ‘treasure’ maps similar to the map found by the children in our class novel. Book Week – let’s read! !

Note: We will add photos of Dress Up Day here later in the week 🙂

Kia ora

• An amazing effort by all children at our Cross Country. Eleven children from our class placed in the top 10! The first six boys and girls in each year group qualified for Zones which is next Tuesday 30th May. Tu meke!
• We had Year 5-8 Hui – Larissa and Kaylee received the Class Assembly awards
• You can also see our Kapa Haka children leading the Karakia

On Thursday afternoons at 2:30 pm,  you will find us in Room 10 being the best BUDDIES!  We all have a BUDDY and some of us share BUDDIES. Sometimes we help our buddies to read a book to us and sometimes we read to our buddies. This term we are learning how to help our buddy when they come across a word they don’t know 🙂

Room 17 is back! We are a class of 30 Year 5/6 children here at Belfast School. We started the year by getting to know each other with Circle Time and fun activities. The Treaty of Waitangi was our first TOPIC to find out about our history and this agreement signed in 1840 between Maori and Pakeha. We read the ‘Tree Hut Treaty’ and came up with our own ‘HUT’ Treaties and built huts around our school. A class agreement was signed and put on our classroom TREETY. Do you have a Class Agreement? Click on the Blogs (left hand side of this BLOG Site) from all the learners in our class to find out what else we have been doing.

We would love to hear from you!

We won the Class Maths Week Competition! This is how we did it!

1. Decided on a Halloween theme.
2. Chose a product to sell – Giant marshmellows dipped in white chocolate with a face on a toothpick
3. Voted for a product name – ‘Hallowmellows’
4. Created a company name – ‘The Ghost House Company’
5. Children applied for positions in the company by writing a letter to the CEO – Me 🙂
6. Children received confirmation and an offer of a position in the company.
7. Children started fulfilling their roles.
8. Advertised the ‘Hallow Mellows’ for $1 each
9. Set up our stall on Market Day – SALE price 50% off
10. Sold over 200 HALLOW MELLOWS – making the most profit!
11. 

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We have been so busy this term!

• Each Reading Group studied a novel which ended in a PLay based activity like growing their own mythical creature (Water Horse Group), playing with chocolate playdough (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), creating a War Horse Game (War Horse Group) and making Dream Catchers (My Name is Mina Group) 🙂
• Focus on Number strategies and STATISTICS – learning about different types of graphs – collecting and displaying data
• We were lucky to have Miss Sherriff as our Graduate Teacher this term (an extra Teacher was so helpful and beneficial for all)
• The Police and Fire Department visited and we were able to sit inside the vehicles/wear the uniform and listen to them talk about their job
• Weather was our TOPIC this term; difference between weather and climate, types of extreme weather, major weather events in history and the impact of extreme weather on the environment and people
• Jumping June prizes arrived
• Sports Assembly
• Winter Sport 
• RAMS Basketball Class sessions
• Kitchen Chemistry Demonstration
• Queen’s Memorial 

• Sadly – we had an official ‘GOODBYE’ parade for Mr Barrow – and a shared lunch for our kind Graduate Teacher, Miss Sherriff.

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• We had a visit from a Scientist last week 🙂 We saw some great science experiments using everyday kitchen materials.
• Our Graduate Student Teacher, Shannae Sherriff started teaching in our classroom. Having an extra teacher in the class has been amazing for all! She will be with us until the end of the term. 
• Group Novel studies have started – novels including ‘War Horse’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, ‘My Name is Mina’, ‘Frindle’ and ‘Water Horse’. Check with your child to find out which one they are reading 🙂
• For Topic our focus has been ‘Weather’ – starting to write reports about how the weather affects us next week. 
• Statistics is the Maths topic until the end of the term – focusing on graphs.

Thank you for reading our first Class Blog Post using the new Blog system. It has been a busy year! We have been working hard in Maths, Reading and Writing time. In Topic time we have learned about lots of different topics like Wolves, Matariki, Kindness Week, Gorillas and this week we are working on our own choice of TOPIC. Skipping has been our main fitness everyday and have just had our JUMPING JUNE – SKIPATHON. It was a lot of fun. On Friday afternoons we have Winter Sport and play Netball, Rippa Rugby, Modified Games and Football. Please look at some of the photos our Teacher has taken throughout the term. Next term we have a Graduate Student Teacher in our classroom from Week 3 until the end of the term. We are excited about having another teacher in our classroom 🙂